Image

Info

Colorful Creatures

Going unnoticed seems like a perfectly good strategy to avoid being eaten. Despite this, many animals display colors that are more likely to gain attention than avoid it. This collection of images provides a small sample of some of the world's most colorful creatures.

Many animals wear drab colors: browns and greens that closely match their surroundings. This type of coloration, called camouflage, helps a creature to blend in, to go unnoticed. A lizard is far less likely to see a leaf-green katydid sitting on a plant stem than a bright orange monarch butterfly. However, if given a choice between the two, it would be an unwise lizard that chose the butterfly for its next meal.

Monarch butterflies and other brightly colored creatures use flashythreats instead of camouflage to avoid being eaten. Often these threats are backed up by bad smells, bad flavors, painful bites or stings, or aharmful poison. Monarchs, for example, carry a poison inside their bodies that they obtain from the milkweed they eat as larvae. Coral snakes have poison, too, but theirs is delivered through a painful, and potentially deadly, bite. Although animals with such bold coloration tend to standout like sore thumbs, predators tend to avoid them, especially if they have had a distasteful or painful experience with a similar-looking animal in the past.

The same bright colors that ward off danger also help animals attract mates. Peacocks are famous for their long, beautiful, iridescent green and blue tail feathers and for the audacious Las Vegas-style courtship displays they put on whenever a peahen strolls by. It turns out that there's a reason for all this pomp and circumstance, no matter how unimpressed a peahen may appear in response to such a display. Studies have shown definitively that males with the longest tails and most impressive displays have more success attracting mates and ultimately produce more offspring. And this is the case with countless creatures around the world, including many other birds, fish,reptiles, amphibians, mammals, and invertebrates. After all, the louder the message, the better it's heard.

Window Opacity

Feedback Form

Quick Assign

Assignment Code:

Assignment URL:

Assign directly to your students using the code or link above, without having them log in. Simply tell your students to go to
www.pbsstudents.org and enter the Assignment Code, or click on the Assignment URL to share the assignment as a link.